Solar irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa: economic feasibility and development potential

Irrespective of water resource abundance, agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is predominantly rainfed. Along with fertilization, irrigation could support smallholder farmers with stabilizing crop yields, increasing incomes, and achieving food security. A key barrier to irrigation uptake is inadequate rural electricity supply for pumping and distributing water, besides other infrastructure deficits. Here we devise a spatially explicit integrated modelling framework to show that over one third of unmet crop water requirements of 19 major crops in smallholder cropland of SSA could be supplied with standalone solar photovoltaic (PV) irrigation systems that can be paid back by farmers within 20 years. This accounts for 60 km(3) yr(-1) of blue irrigation water requirements distributed over 55 million ha of currently rainfed harvested area (about 40% of the total). Crucially, we identify 10 million ha with a profit potential >$100 ha(-1) yr(-1). To finance such distributed small-scale infrastructure deployment and operation, we estimate an average discounted investment requirement of $3 billion yr(-1), generating potential profits of over $5 billion yr(-1) from increased yields to the smallholder farmers, as well as significant food security and energy access co-benefits. We demonstrate the critical importance of business models and investment incentives, crop prices, and PV & battery costs in shaping the economic feasibility and profitability of solar irrigation. Yet, we find that without strong land and water resources management infrastructure and governance, a widespread deployment of solar pumps may drive an unsustainable exploitation of water sources and reduce environmental flows. Our analysis supports public and private stakeholders seeking to target investments along the water-energyfood-economy-sustainable development nexus.

Automated summary

In sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture relies heavily on rainfed irrigation and inadequate rural electricity supply is a major barrier to adopting irrigation. Through the use of a spatially explicit integrated modeling framework, it has been shown that standalone solar photovoltaic irrigation systems can meet over one third of the crop water requirements in smallholder cropland of sub-Saharan Africa. This has the potential to increase incomes, achieve food security, and be paid back by farmers within 20 years.